Savanhdary Vongpoothorn
“Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s void-haunted, void-fascinated art presents us with dazzling quanta and vibrant fields of energy…The possibility of multiple readings, multiple interpretations, transpersonal and transcultural synergies has been a motivating force of Vongpoothorn’s thinking about art throughout her career”
~ Terence Maloon
“She has taken the lines and grids of the minimalists and imbued them with both a ritualistic dimension and sensuousness that leads directly back to nature”
~ John McDonald
Recognised as one of Australia’s leading artists from the South East Asian region, SAVANHDARY VONGPOOTHORN (b.1971) came to Australia wth her family as refugees from Laos in 1979 when she was eight years old. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Western Sydney University and a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of NSW (CoFA). She now lives and works in Canberra, Australia. Savanhdary has undertaken numerous residencies in Australia and overseas including India, Japan, Scotland, Singapore, Vietnam, and Laos.
Vongpoothorn’s practice brings together cross-cultural influences and perspectives including traditional Lao textile heritage, Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, literature and poetry, references to socio-political histories of Laos, minimalism, and conceptualism in Western Art History. In recent years, Vongpoothorn’s practice has focused on ecological change and destruction in Australia and her country of origin, Laos. Her work is included in national and international public and private collections. In 2019 she was the subject of a survey exhibition All that arises at Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra.